The Chef Who Came in Out of the Cold

Jared Schulz grew up in Wausau, worked his way through some of the most demanding kitchens in the Midwest, and landed at Lake Lawn Resort with 20 years of experience and a very clear idea of what a great meal is supposed to do.

Jared Schulz has a twin sister who is exactly one minute older than him. He mentions this as his little-known fact, delivered with the casual ease of someone who has answered a lot of interview questions and knows which ones are worth a genuine answer. It’s a small detail; it also tells you something. He grew up sharing space, sharing meals, sharing the ordinary rhythms of a Wausau household where food was about the people around the table as much as what was on it.

That instinct runs all the way through his cooking.

Chef Jared is now the Executive Chef at Lake Lawn Resort, leading the culinary program across 1878 on the Lake, The Lookout Bar & Eatery, Isle of Capri Café, and the resort’s full event and private dining operations. He arrived in February (he describes his mission plainly: to honor the resort’s historic roots while elevating the culinary experience for today’s guests), and he brought with him more than 20 years of culinary leadership, including a stretch at Destination Kohler where his team received and retained Forbes Five-Star and Five-Diamond Awards. That kind of recognition, in the rooms where it’s earned, changes how a chef thinks about execution. He’s carried that standard with him ever since.

His career started the way the best culinary careers tend to: at the bottom. He was 15, back in Wausau, working at a small family-owned Italian restaurant run by an Italian chef and his three daughters. He worked every station they’d let a teenager touch; front of house, back of house, dishwashing, bussing tables. The kitchen won.

“The kitchen and BOH operations in general captured my heart,” he says. “That’s where the culinary magic and creativity happens. It’s where the guest experience begins.”

He went on to train at Le Cordon Bleu, then built a career through Forbes Five-Star and Five-Diamond properties across Wisconsin and Arizona. Along the way, he developed a philosophy he calls Elevated Comfort Food: take a classic (meatloaf, short ribs, roasted chicken, spaghetti bolognese), execute it with genuine technique and quality ingredients, and resist the urge to pile on complexity. “Sometimes we overcomplicate things with too many ingredients,” he says. “Elevated comfort food means getting back to the basics.”

He also came through COVID, which he lists, without drama, as the biggest obstacle of his career. The industry lost a lot of great people between 2020 and 2022; kitchens that were already demanding became shorthanded and harder. He stayed. He learned. He came out, by his own account, stronger. In an industry that tends to filter out the people who aren’t serious about it, that kind of perseverance is a credential.

At Lake Lawn Resort (which has been welcoming guests to the shores of Delavan Lake since 1878, which is, in the Wisconsin resort context, essentially forever), his cooking philosophy aligns with the property’s character in a way that reads as deliberate but is probably also just a good match. The resort draws multi-generational families, couples marking anniversaries, guests who have been making the drive from Chicago and Milwaukee for decades. They want food that feels like somewhere; food that earns a place in the memory of the trip. That’s exactly what elevated comfort food does when it’s done right.

He’s currently sharpening the individual identity of each dining venue on the property. At 1878 on the Lake, the vision is refined contemporary American cuisine, precise and seasonal, with Delavan Lake filling the windows. The Lookout Bar & Eatery is the looser counterpart: approachable, shareable, built for the relaxed tempo of a lake afternoon. Isle of Capri Café stays casual and family-forward, stone-fired pizzas and local ice cream for guests who just walked in off the dock. “When you walk into 1878, it should feel completely different from The Lookout,” he explains. “But in both places, the food should be approachable and executed at a high level.”

He also, it turns out, golfs. Seriously. He studies PGA Tour stats, works to copy the form of the pros, and this spring let his personal obsession productively collide with his professional one: when the Masters was underway, he put together a Masters-inspired menu at Majestic Oaks (the resort’s golf course), featuring egg salad sandwiches, BBQ pork sandwiches, and pimento cheese sandwiches, the same three items served in Augusta every April for roughly what a glass of water costs everywhere else. The golfers loved it. It’s the kind of move that only works when the chef behind it is a genuine fan of the thing he’s riffing on.

When he talks about who inspires him, he names Gordon Ramsay; not the television version, but the underlying story. Someone who didn’t arrive famous, who worked his way up through intense kitchens and long hours and constant pressure, and built something through discipline. That’s the part Chef Jared finds useful. “That kind of discipline can be really motivating if you’re chasing your own goals.”

His advice to anyone pursuing the same path is short and worth keeping: roll up your sleeves and be patient. Hard work and perseverance will get you there. He also has a clear sense of what fabulous means in this industry, and it isn’t playing it safe. Being innovative, unafraid to take risks, dedicated and bold; those are his words. “You need to stand out in this industry to conquer great accomplishments.”

Outside the kitchen, he’s in Delavan with his wife (the two of them chose to plant both professional and personal roots in the Lake Geneva area), spoiling their two dogs and a cat, cooking at home for the pleasure of it, and, yes, watching golf.

He joined Lake Lawn Resort in February. The menus are his. The kitchens are his. And the next time you sit down at 1878 on the Lake or grab a seat at The Lookout after a round at Majestic Oaks, you’re eating food made by a Wisconsin kid who grew up in Wausau, worked every station worth working, and came home to cook.

Some stories start around the table. This one started in a dish pit, and it’s been building ever since. Read the original Fabulous Wisconsin profile of Chef Jared at fabulouswisconsin.com. Dine with him at 1878 on the Lake, The Lookout Bar & Eatery, or Isle of Capri Café.